Zibeline — Complete eBook

Three-quarters of an hour later, as, the audience
was leaving the theatre, M. Desvanneaux recounted
to whoever chose to listen that Mademoiselle de Vermont
had passed the whole of the last ‘entr’acte’
in the greenroom corridor, in a friendly chat with
Eugenie Gontier.

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Life goes on, and that
is less gay than the stories
Men admired her; the
women sought some point to criticise

ZIBELINE

By PHILIPPE DE MASSA

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER XIII

THE INDUSTRIAL ORPHAN ASYLUM

When the prefectoral axe of the Baron Haussmann hewed
its way through the Faubourg St. Germain in order
to create the boulevard to which this aristocratic
centre has given its flame, the appropriation of private
property for public purposes caused to disappear numerous
ancient dwellings bearing armorial devices, torn down
in the interest of the public good, to the equalizing
level of a line of tramways. In the midst of
this sacrilegious upheaval, the Hotel de Montgeron,
one of the largest in the Rue St. Dominique, had the
good fortune to be hardly touched by the surveyor’s
line; in exchange for a few yards sliced obliquely
from the garden, it received a generous addition of
air and light on that side of the mansion which formerly
had been shut in.

The Duke lived there in considerable state. His
electors, faithful in all things, had made of their
deputy a senator who sat in the Luxembourg, in virtue
of the Republican Constitution, as he would have sat
as a peer of France had the legitimate monarchy followed
its course. He was a great lord in the true meaning
of the word: gracious to the humble, affable
among his equals, inclined, among the throng of new
families, to take the part of the disinherited against
that of the usurpers.

In Mademoiselle de Prerolles he had found a companion
animated with the same sentiments, and the charitable
organization, meeting again at the Duchess’s
residence, on the day following the revival of ’Adrienne
Lecouvreuer’, to appoint officers for the Industrial
Orphan Asylum, could not have chosen a president more
worthy or more devoted.

Besides such austere patronesses as Madame Desvanneaux
and her daughter, the organization included several
persons belonging to the world of fashion, such as
Madame de Lisieux and Madame de Nointel, whose influence
was the more effective because their circle of acquaintance
was more extensive. The gay world often fraternizes
willingly with those who are interested in philanthropic
works.

The founders of the Industrial Orphan Asylum intended
that the institution should harbor, bring up, and
instruct as great a number as possible of the children
of infirm or deceased laborers.